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It was hard to say where they were. Much of the world looked about the same in recent months. Even though the Blight had been defeated, and no longer plagued the citizens, animals, and vegetation of Ga’leah, it still left a smoldering wasteland in place of what had once been a vast world full of life. Most of the remaining population lived at the Five Corners or Caerleon, with a few still inhabiting Xehacora. Everywhere else was still too sickly to sustain life for long. However, in this corner of what had once been Dokrayth, a few miles north of the ruins of Aeswick, life was just beginning to take hold again. Her own life, while still her own, was different now as a result of the Blight. She’d met the pirate Amelia Bonny, who had brought her - albeit a bit reluctantly - to Caerleon. Miraculously, she had not been recognized or hunted, and in fact had made herself useful in defeating the Blight. Now, she was working at the castle, something she never thought would happen. There also weren’t many bounties on her head anymore, seeing as the majority of her clientele and those who hated them were dead.

Not that Andrea didn’t run across problems. Every so often, she’d take an odd job (old habits die hard, after all), but they had been so few and far between that she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it anymore. Now, she and Amelia were out in the wastes hunting dragons, of all things. The wicked hybrid creatures still roamed, they just were no longer under the control of the would-be goddess Maleficent. Amelia was technically one of them, except Andrea had managed to bust her out of her father’s cave before he could completely hand her body over to the dragon soul. Instead, she was now an extremely powerful shapeshifter with a tail that made Andrea green with envy. Not that she ever wanted to see her father again, but couldn’t he have given her a proper tail? All she could do with hers was swat flies. There was too much equine left in her body, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

With dusk nearly upon them, Andrea stopped feeding the fire, watching as the slowly dying flames flickered lazily in the gentle breeze. The trees around them still showed little to no signs of life, but little shoots of grass and weeds were beginning to pop through the murky, damp ground. Amelia was out, probably scouting the area they would hunt next. They went out almost exclusively at night, as they both could see quite well in low light and most of the dragons were more active at night anyhow. She’d caught a couple of rabbits earlier, and while they were a bit scrawny, they appeared to have been eking out a living in the dismal place. Maybe the world would be inhabitable again sooner than she thought. Leaning back against her bag, she glanced around at their little camp. It wasn’t much, they’d strung up some furs as shelter, each with their own pack of supplies, a few bladders of water each and the little fire Andrea had been nursing for the last hour since they’d cooked their somewhat pathetic, but satisfying meal. They hadn’t seen another soul in days, and because of this, and the warmth of the fire Andrea was getting a little too comfortable. Her bow was leaning up against a tree a few yards away, and the only weapon she had on her at the moment was a dagger.

Glancing at her fingers, she saw a generous amount of dirt caked under them, and without hesitating plucked the dagger off her belt and began to gently scrape them clean. The only thing that was worse than dirty fingernails in her eyes was blood in her hair. It wasn’t because she was aware of the color clash, but she hated the feeling and the smell. First it was like putrid water. Then it was like tar, then it was just this crusty, smelly shit that attracted flies. Dirt under her fingernails felt wrong, and it looked wrong too. As she picked through each nail, she found herself wondering when the hell Amelia was going to go back, and whether or not they might come across something interesting today. With their luck, probably not.

Amelia was less disappointed than she would ordinarily have been at the last of action for the last couple days. She'd been afraid there would be dozens, hundreds like her roaming the wastes, but since the initial excitement claiming this territory from the pair that had been circling the skies before, it seemed the rumors of a number of the hybrids trying to organize had been... exaggerated, to say the least. On the one hand, it was certainly a good thing for the sake of the world - individual dragons were destructive enough, and given the monsters the surviving humans had just handled, Amelia figured that most people had enough monster-fighting to be getting along with for a few centuries.

That was most people, of course. Not so much for her, clearly. But Amelia had always lived for the next fight, and her experience with the Blight really hadn't changed any of that about her. Not for the first time, it had brought her to reflect on the fact that she might not be completely OK in the head. Certainly the dragon coiled in the back of her mind hadn't tired of being let out to fight... maybe she'd been paired up with the right spirit after all. Which wasn't going to stop her separating as many parts of Viktor's body from the rest of him as she could manage, next time she saw him. But she supposed there were silver linings to almost everything.

But hell, walking the ruins of Dokrayth and elsewhere in the world could get depressing. She might have been a criminal, but even a pirate liked a civilization to thrive. Made it hard to steal when everything was already dead or burned to the ground. Without the fighting to break up the monotony, it was hard to avoid the crushing reality of just how bad it had gotten. And she supposed that was the problem a lot of people were having. Without the active struggle for survival to occupy the mind, plenty else could creep in. Plenty that was much less enjoyable than little things like having to worry about getting bitten and infected with a plague. At least, to Amelia's preference. She had always spent time training on a daily basis with her sword and otherwise, keeping herself sharp - with a whole new physical form to get used to that had doubled her need to do so, but even that only occupied so many hours in a day.

While she and Alexandrea had agreed it was a bad idea to actually make camp in any of the ruined towns, it didn't stop Amelia from looking through them. Their prey might not have had the same issue though - or, she had thought, there might be something else worth finding. In this case, she HAD been able to find a ruined pub... SO it was that when the pirate ambled back into the camp with her redheaded companion, she set an unopened bottle of rum down on the rock next to the other woman.

"Found presents. Not shit for entertainment though. Think it's time we give up on this wild goose chase? Doesn't seem like the fucker's are grouping up after all. Leastwise not here." She unbuckled the sword from her belt and set it down as she sat, pulling one knee up to her chest as she took a knife and began cutting away the wax seal on another bottle so she could get at the cork.

For the first time since the Blight, Erestel looked out into the stretch of wasteland that spread wide before her, lamenting a little over the loss of valuables that were once sold here. She had spent her first night in a shallow overhang of ruins on the outskirts of the Wastes, unconcerned whether she could keep up with the trail of her targets. She was confident that should she idle too far behind and lose their path, or if she was simply feeling lazy, that her bird form would more than make up for the task. She spent the remainder of her second day hiking through a good length of it, trailing them on four legs instead of two, and careful to remain unseen. While their fragrance permeated the air as human, another musky odor mingled with it, confusing and undermining her abilities as a tracker. It festered in back of her mind she was unable to place the particularly muted scent.

Perhaps it lent to why they were so hard to find, though she dismissed the idea rather quickly—it would have to wait for an answer until later. Once she was at a generous distance, she retreated from her predator form, her fingers tightening from the pain of change. She wasn’t sure if the pain lessened over the years, or her tolerance for shapeshifting simply increased. That had been one of the few questions no Druid, or their lore could answer.

Erestel was careful to twist and weave about the landscape to avoid disturbing the fowl overhead. The fire burned low in the distance, the red shape of it leaping up and down, flickering with every gentle gust of wind. Their camp was sparsely furnished with a few skins and other necessities, but it had no luxuries to speak of apart from the small fire. It meant they were comfortable—too comfortable.

Ensconced in shadows and brush, she took to her raven form to observe for a moment. Her sight in this form was always as off-putting as it was exceptional, but it served her purposes well enough. She drew back her arms—now wings, and wheeled into the sky. She stopped in close, flitting from tree to tree just like any bird, but keenly aware of the passing time. No one paid birds much heed, especially ones that fed on carrion, and she was glad of it as she turned back southward into the brush.

Her thoughts faded as she landed in a spot that provided cover on all sides, and her instincts took over. She wasted no time covering the trail back to the camp, but careful to keep her footfalls silent. She leapt from the shadows behind the tree nearest Andrea and into the firelight. Erestel seized the bow and stretched it level to her shoulders, notching the string with an arrow and flexing it even quicker in the direction of Andrea’s head. She took a quick step backwards, keeping from an easy arm’s reach. Erestel nodded to the sword at Amelia’s feet, and lifted her gaze to lock on the pirate.

“Throw it over, nicely. You do anything other than that, I shoot.” Erestel put as much venom in her tone as she could, but her eyes were solemn and uncompromising as stone. She expected at any moment to hear the sound of drawn steel, and she half-hoped for it. It was dull if people simply went quietly, but hoped she was not less than astute in her plans for capture.

“And you,” she nodded towards Andrea, “keep your hands where I can see them.”

She’d been dozing off when Amelia showed up, and immediately upon her hunting partner’s arrival she sat upright, intrigued by what she had in her hand. It wasn’t until she set the bottle down that she sat up and grinned. While raiding emptied bars was not really their job description, Andrea figured that after a week of this nonsense without any luck at all, they deserved a treat. Rubbing her hands together, she leaned forward, inspecting the bottle and not bothering to try and contain her happiness. “Have I mentioned lately that you’re my favorite? Because you are.” She was so focused on the bottle of rum that she almost didn’t catch Amelia’s suggestion. It was a fair idea, though Andrea wasn’t sure where they should go next. They couldn’t have all disappeared, there had been hundreds, maybe thousands that her father created. Unless Maleficent had enchanted them all to die with her, but that seemed unlikely. Especially since Amelia was still here, although she was an incomplete project so there was no telling what she might have missed.

“Maybe we should be going farther north,” She said. “Or towards the mountains. There are less ghosts in the mountains anyways.” Andrea made a face. This was one of the most haunted areas in Ga’leah, or at least that was what the rumors. She’d seen something in her dreams the other night, and thought she caught sight of a distorted face in a puddle. Yet ghosts didn’t bother her for some reason. Sure, she woke with a start from dreams of howling spirits but after that she just carried on with her day. Maybe it was because all of her worst nightmares were alive and she couldn’t give any less of a shit about them anymore. Faces, whispers, ghostly incarnations of lost people…it didn’t bother her. However, she was very nearly alone in that belief. It was why the region was so deserted, why nobody came out here. Not to mention, many who had initially set out were no longer the same, or they didn’t come back at all. Amelia didn’t seem bothered by it either, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t ready to leave the wretched place.

She heard the sound of movement too late, and looked around just in time to see a young woman pointing her own weapon at her head. The first thought that went through her mind was: Can I survive a direct shot to the face? Answer: Probably not. Andrea was good at healing but she wasn’t that good. The second thought was how the hell had she managed to sneak up on them, the third thought was a hint of grudging admiration for her spunk in following them out here. Or finding them…or just being out here. She had no idea how long the girl had been out there. When she demanded Amelia toss her sword away, Andrea sighed, her expression irritated. She had good enough reflexes that she could block a shot aimed at her head with her hand or arm, that much she knew she could survive. Not really in the mood for dying or killing she glared at the girl.

“Oh put that away and come join us for rum before you shoot somebody’s eye out,” She said irritably. “I’ll admit, you’ve got some nerves coming out here on your own. I respect that. But that doesn’t mean we won’t kill you. What do you want, my coin purse? Pocket change?” She reached down into her bag, pulled out her coin purse and shook it in the air. Seriously, this was not what they needed right now. Why had they not been paying more attention? Why hadn’t they noticed? It was a bit pathetic, really. Perhaps they really had been convinced that nobody in their right mind would follow them out here, several days walk from the nearest civilization into the most haunted region of Ga’leah. But still…they should have seen her coming.

"Careful now, I'm susceptible to flattery." Amelia winked at Andrea as she sat down, taking a glance around the area before she started to settle in herself.

"Less ghosts... Fucking hate ghosts. What's a lady with a sword supposed to do about ghosts? Honestly." Amelia shook her head a little bit at that scowling at the notion. She wondered if there was some kind of coating she could have put on her sword for that... who knew? Even if she changed shapes she didn't know if her dragon had any ideas for what to do with those sorts of things. She didn't reply when asked - sullen, scaly bitch. They'd come to a certain level of understanding since being trapped together in the same body, but that didn't necessarily extend to the level of friendship.

She was taking a swig of rum when the blur darted into the area, and for Amelia's part, while she went tense for a moment, she just lowered the bottle and took a drink. "What, the rum?" she asked, perhaps alarmingly casual for someone who had just been ambushed. It really had nothing to do with what she'd been turned into - Amelia had always been like that. Being put at a disadvantage only made things more fun, which was probably going to get her killed, one of these days.

Plus, it was actually pretty hard to tell what someone was nodding toward, when the other person was being nonspecific.

"If you want rum, the aggression really ain't necessary... unless ya really came here to play. Which is fine too - this place is boring as shit." She gestured with the bottle to the general area, frowning again. "Supposed to be all sorts of dragons nesting in these mountains, but turns out, it's just us two. Disappointing." She dropped the dragon bit in a somewhat ambiguous way, letting their attacker take it however she wanted. But Amelia didn't make any move at the sword, for one reason or another.

She did, however, take another swig of rum.

From a practical standpoint, the situation was pretty bad. She didn't have Andrea's cheating fae blood, and she never wore any real armor, her clothes were just tough enough to be practical and handle general scrapes, not to stop blades or arrows. Plus, she shifted forms a bit slow for a situation like this - not enough practice, really. So it really depended, in a lot of ways, on how good an archer this lady was. She hadn't brought her own bow, so it probably wasn't her favorite weapon. Wasn't Amelia's favorite, either. Really she was just attached to her sword.

A mirthless smile withered from her face, and her thin eyebrows knitted together. A moment’s pregnant silence stretched as she paused, unsure, and studied the woman’s face. It quickly dawned on her she was serious, and her expression soured. Andrea’s words stirred up petulance, and she resisted letting the arrow go. Shoot an eye out, Erestel repeated internally with a glare; half tempted to actually shoot her eye out. Her jaw tightened at the discontent of being treated like a child, but settled for a huff of derision and disappointment instead.

“If you offer it up so simply, I will gladly relieve you from the heavy burden,” she responded, mouth twisting in a wry smile, and eyes lighting up. They were an unremarkable color in itself: bright amber outlined by dark brown, but it was a sharp contrast against the white curls of her hair. Her face was slender with high cheekbones, and her arms bore olive skin with long fingered hands free from most grime and calluses. She wore two short blades on her belt from which also hung a few pouches of leather. One of them was cloth and hung small and curiously heavy. Her boots looked fit for the travel, but despite the finery of her clothes they bore rips and tears. The brocade still glinted with golden details in the dusk, lending some hint to her upbringing. Beneath it, she stood short and lean under leather wrapped fur. Occasionally she would shed her clothing for rags to blend in, but she hadn’t found the need to appear so threadbare as of late. Erestel knew her clothes sometimes attracted unwanted eager looks, but for the most part, she didn’t care.

Her bemused smile said she wanted a lot more than some pocket change. Hairs pricked the back of her neck, impatient to hurry the anticipated conflict. Her instinct screamed for her to attack, and leap on them both until they bled. “I could always take you hostage quietly, but somehow, I doubt you like that option much more. Nobody ever does,” she sighed with a little disappointment, expression wilting. Erestel never wanted bloodshed if she could avoid it, but in these cases she’d learned it was near inevitable. Still, it was a nice option to have on the table.

To her, there was no nerve in coming here, and in fact, she was not bothered by the haunts in this area. As far as she was concerned, she was already used to her own, but these at least had the decency to be visible.

Erestel raised a thin brow in the direction of Amelia, shooting her an incredulous look, but piquing her humor. “Let me spare you introductions. I already know your names, and mine isn’t important.” Her lips turned up slyly, eyes flickering darkly. “Play--perhaps. Let me make you both a counter offer. How about I take your rum, gold and anything else worthwhile—and let you live?” There was a mischievousness in her expression that said she’d held back on the fine details of her deal on purpose.

Tag Bones & Alistair...meh. I like the dialogue at least. The rest of this post can go suck it.

Well, at least she was getting on the girl’s nerves. Or at least, that’s what it seemed like. She watched as Amelia addressed her and wished she could be as suave. Mostly she was just annoyed. They were hunting dragons, they didn’t have time for being…hunting! Who hunted hunters? Seemed like a bad business plan to her. At least it wasn’t boring? She thought about this for a moment and then sighed. “I mean…you’re not wrong.” Andrea liked boring sometimes. She wanted to hang out and drink rum, maybe sing some songs if they had enough of it, though she doubted Amelia had much more than a bottle, which wasn’t enough to get her properly tossed if she drank the whole bottle herself. So odds were, their evening would have been excruciatingly boring if little miss blondie hadn’t showed up. Still, she was properly miffed.

When she didn’t seem to react to Amelia’s dragon comment, Andrea decided then and there that she was just stupid. Granted, it was also an easy thing to miss because generally people did not look at the pair of them and thing “Oh yes, those two must be dragons.” It just wasn’t really in their appearance, and technically speaking, Andrea wasn’t actually a dragon at all. Still though, this kid was about as arrogant as they came, thinking she could waltz out into the middle of nowhere and attack a couple of trained killers with nothing but a stolen bow. Of course, she never would have gotten it if Andrea had just kept track of her own damn weapons, but she honestly hadn’t expected to run into anyone other than some dragons. Which brought her back to the shred of respect she felt for this girl. Whether or not she thought she had em, she had some serious nerves.

At the girl’s proposed offer however, Andrea felt something snap inside. That little smirk…it was probably meant to set her off, and by golly it had worked like a fucking charm. Getting to her feet, she stepped over to her friend, grabbing the bottle of rum and taking a long swig. For starters, she was going to need it, but it also gave her an excuse to subtly place herself between Amelia and their (probably) soon to be attacker. Part of it was because she liked Amelia, the other was that it was nearly impossible to kill Andrea with an arrow, and if it was going for her eye, heart, or something that might actually kill her, she had the reflexes to block it with something less necessary - like her arm. Or her hand. In any case, she wanted to make damn sure this kid wasn’t about to do any lasting damage. When she was done taking a drink (which was about a quarter of the bottle), she set it down and sighed. “I don’t have any gold,” Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed a small bag loaded with silver and raised it carefully, so as not to set her off with shooting eyes out. Then, as she spoke, her lips pulled back into a snarl. “Just SILVER!” Then, she threw it at the girl’s head with every ounce of strength she had, which was quite a lot for a woman her size. Was it entirely possible that the girl would shoot her before the bag of silver made contact? Probably. But there was enough silver in that bag to give any normal person a mild concussion on impact,and if she’d moved fast enough, it might cause their assailant to lose concentration or even drop Andrea’s bow, which would mean the fight was over before it had begun.

“You’re right, I don’t want to come quietly. And I can’t imagine why anyone would want to come with a porcelain faced smug ass blondie when they could instead, snap her in half like a twig!” Her tone suggested she was not joking, but her stature spoke otherwise. Their attacker was taller than Andrea was, and while it wasn’t by much, it really didn’t seem like she had a lot of grunt to back up her claim. Sure, she had gusto, but her appearance was less than intimidating. However, there was something in her voice that suggested otherwise, a pitch that was lower than it should have been. It was subtle, but it was there. There was also a fair bit of reasoning that she was forgetting to do. Like how this girl wouldn’t have gone after them if she wasn’t damn good at her job. It was also entirely possible that she wasn’t human either, which meant that Andrea’s du cythraul card trick may not be as successful as she would like. However, she was far too angry to care just at the moment, so she stood braced for an attack, blood boiling and waiting for an excuse to transform. They hadn’t caught any dragons…she really wanted to kill something.

"You think? Honestly, I'm slipping... Maybe you could've... maybe I'd have opened you up and seen what spilled out." There weren't many people alive more casual than Amelia about the notion of killing someone. Most of the ones who were happened to be complete sociopaths. Amelia didn't think she counted among that category, but she supposed there were doctors who might argue the point. Alas...

"Now the gold is one thing, but the rum? That's a step too far. Threatening the rum, now that I take personally." Amelia said, her tone a bit lower, the mirth fading from her eyes. When Andrea started moving to put herself in the way, Amelia frowned for a moment, but as the conversation turned heated, the pirate let out a sigh. Some people were easily baited... looked like their attacker had the edge on that point. Amelia spent too much time doing the baiting herself to take anything of that sort too personally. But then, Amelia had been held up more than a few times like this in her time. She usually turned things around on the attacker... if not, she'd always found a way to get her revenge later. Worth taking seriously, but not personally, that had been her father's rule.

Fuck you, Dad. she thought, taking a breath and reaching up to loosen the laces of her shirt and leathers, staying where she was behind Andrea, though she put the cork back in the rum bottle and set it on the ground beside her things. Her companion had already elected to be the shield to buy time, so...

"Oh, it's fine... I've been waiting for an excuse to do something like this for a while anyw-" she was starting to say, trying to placate Andrea, though when her friend through the silver, Amelia grit her teeth and rolled back away, landing on her hands and knees and crouching low to the ground, squeezing her eyes shut. Come on, you scaly bitch... come out and play She knew Andrea didn't have the same issues she did with her changes. She hadn't started out with any dragon blood, but she'd always had a second form, and the process had been different. Amelia was still trying to parse just how many side effects her own unnatural 'modification' had, but she'd known there was something else - someone else - in her head ever since whatever Viktor had done. She couldn't really talk to it yet... but she knew it responded to some things. Anger especially.

She'd kept herself low to stay out of sight - and arrow trajectory - but she couldn't stay that way for long when she started to grow. Her whole body would multiply in size many times over by the time she was done, but it was probably her wings that would get spotted first, as they tore out from the flesh of her back and shoved aside the clothes she'd thankfully remembered to leave loose for once, her metallic scales flashing in the sun. The changes were a lot easier than they used to be, but she still snarled in pain as she pushed herself up, lifting her head up as she bared her fangs, crimson eyes flashing as she looked over top of Andrea's head toward the ambusher.

"Are you sure you'd not rather just have the rum...?" she asked again, a deep growl rumbling under her words, bones still cracking and popping as the changes slowed and finished. She was really hoping this stopped hurting so damn much, one of these days. Amelia was not at all a small human. For a dragon, she might not have been the largest - actually she knew for a fact of one that was frighteningly larger - but she was still the size of a very large horse, even before you counted the long neck and tail, or her wings. For most people, that meant a sight of her was quite enough to give someone second thoughts. Maybe this one would persist... At least she'd get a chance to stretch her wings.

Erestel lost all purpose to keep the arrow trained forward as the coins were thrown, ducking immediately away, putting her head to her knees in a crouch and protecting the crown of her head with one forearm. When she looked up at Andrea again, her gaze hardened into a glare, and she snapped the bow in half over one knee.

“And here we were having such a nice conversation,” she sighed with a scornful tone as she rose, her eyes narrowing sharply in disapproval. It was clear rage was building in her to unbearable levels, but she was able to slowly stoke the fire that went with it. Andrea’s words had let the beast out of her cage. Erestel bit back on her lower lip and her nostrils flared angrily, but her mouth twisted upward wryly as she listened to Andrea, as if to convey how much she enjoyed flirting with danger. How this was her definition of fun. How it thrilled her when people put her in situations where she was forced to do things she shouldn’t. “I’m warning you, don’t back me into a corner. You’ll find I’m much harder to snap than a twig,” she growled firmly, a dangerous spark flickering in her eyes.

“I had a feeling you’d take that personally, pirates always seem to,” she commented as she peered at Amelia, lifting a brow. Her gaze lingered as she watched the woman’s movements with a tense curiosity. The color paled from her face a little as she watched Amelia transform, and any emotion she previously displayed flattened, blanched in comparison by her desire to survive. Her next words came out a little more strained than she liked.

“Even if I wanted a drink—and that’s not saying I don’t—I have a fair feeling if I reached for it, you’d simply attempt to bite my head off,” she voiced pragmatically. “At least now I know why there’s such a large bounty on your heads,” she digressed. “But all this seems unfair, you’ve shown me your tricks. I feel like it’s only fair I show you some of mine,” she contended and shot them a roguish expression, letting her eyes fall to the ground as she rolled her shoulders back, almost in pleasure. Erestel shot a venomous look at Andrea as her form twisted and changed, ochre fur and black rosettes exploding across her skin. She dropped down on all fours, claws protracting into the dirt below. The hair along her hackles rose on end, and she curled her lips back to expose bone-white teeth. Erestel rumbled a low snarl, hindquarters coiling back, readied to spring forward at a moment’s notice. Golden eyes searched them both for any sign of movement, long tail swishing lowly this way and that in the air. Eventually, greedy eyes fell back on Andrea with an iron grip and a feral look of rage.

Tag Bones & Alistair...meh. Probably the quickest I've ever replied, so there's that at least. But lol, Erestel is mad at Andrea for that insult.

When it came to Andrea’s things, she wasn’t all that possessive. Money, clothes, weapons…all easily replaced. She never went out of her way to buy (or steal) something expensive or particularly meaningful. Even things she made, like the bow their attacker had just snapped didn’t pull at her heart strings all that much. It just wasn’t her nature, so long as she had clothes on her back and a weapon at her disposal, she was content with her lot in life. Of course, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to make a scene about it.

Unfortunately, she was not all that surprised by Andrea’s surprise attack with the money, and while Andrea was grateful she hadn’t just been shot, she couldn’t wait to rip the girl’s throat out for breaking her bow. She snorted at the girl’s response and finally was rewarded for her efforts when she saw just how angry the girl was becoming at her and Amelia’s antics. True, it was entirely possible that Amelia was doing all the heavy lifting but satisfaction was satisfaction so she would take it in whatever form it came. A nasty smile crossed her face at the girl’s warning. “We’ll see about that,” She replied softly. The threat in her voice was not veiled at all, almost a sneer as though daring her to try and fight them. Which she had no doubt that the girl intended to.

She didn’t need to listen or see anything to know that Amelia was transforming behind her; the girl’s face said it all and the smirk returned to Andrea’s face once more. Now did she get it? Even so, she watched the girl recompose and found herself reluctantly impressed. It wasn’t very often that Andrea came across somebody who could stay calm after discovering that a dragon was standing in front of them, not a human. And those who could generally had a form that was up to the fight. Perhaps she was stupid. Or maybe she had another trick up her sleeve. When she spoke up, Andrea crossed her arms and watched her, faintly amused. Amelia’s comment was perfect, though it seemed their little intruder didn’t quite get the sentiment. However, it was the bounty comment that really got her attention. Who the fuck was after them now? Everyone who’d ever had a beef with Andrea was long dead, either killed by herself, their other enemies, or the Blight. She was both curious, and irritated.

Andrea didn’t bother to hide the confusion on her face. Tricks? What was she going to do now? Then again, as she’d been ruminating moments before, she was either stupid or had another trick up her sleeve. Apparently, Andrea had been so convinced that the former was the truth that she was quite surprised to see a jaguar appear where the girl was. It glared at her and Amelia and then snarled in a way that was almost scary as she prepared to attack. Well, “almost” was a bit unfair, to anyone else it would have been terrifying but the dragon standing behind her was at least four times heavier. Andrea’s expression turned to utter disbelief. So it seemed that she had been partially right; turned out this girl was both stupid and had another trick up her sleeve. After a moment of staring, she gestured to Amelia incredulously.

“That’s a dragon!” She said. “A dragon! This…there’s no competition!” A little trill of laughter escaped her and then she decided that this nonsense was going to end and it was going to end now. Rolling her eyes, the corner of her lip twitched slightly as she eyed the cat.

“Whatever. I guess you’re just as stupid as I thought you were. If you call that a trick, I can only wonder what a joke is,but this, –” She interrupted herself as she took a step forward, and just like that the du cythrual emerged. Her magic was slightly different than her companions. If you had blinked, you would have missed the transformation completely. But where Andrea had been standing before now was nearly one and a half tons of angry black magic. She kept her immense wings neatly folded at her sides in case kitty cat got any ideas, talons digging into the ground as she readied to strike, bared her teeth and cut loose a low, rumbling snarl that sounded like an alligator mixed with an earthquake. She stared her down a moment, then laughed softly, the pitched down, rough version of her voice filled with satisfied amusement. “– this is my party trick, pussy cat.” Chuckling, she took a step back staring down at the cat. “Now, let’s go over our options one more time before I get violent. You can stop this ridiculous show now, we can put all this nonsense behind us and have a drink. Or, you can run or choose to fight, and we’ll catch you and rip you apart like a twig. Your cute little claws and you’re pretty little jaws won’t save you here, they won’t even make a dent.” She took a moment to be impressed with her little rhyme. “What’s it going to be?”

"That's because it's senseless, and we pirates should know a thing or two about senseless. But people have always done SOMETHING worth punishing, rum on the other hand is pure, it never did anything to you." Amelia pointed out - though there was a bit of humor to her voice all the same. No one had been killed yet after all, Amelia wasn't about to take anything all that personally for real, but she wasn't about to completely drop the banter she'd been building up thus far.

"And to be honest with you, I really don't know. I mean, the price had better be high, I'm kind of a bitch like that, but really anything anyone would really hold a grudge for I did before... this thing happened." she admitted, lifting her wings and her shoulders in an approximation of a shrug.

Amelia narrowed her eyes though when Erestel began her own shift as well, and for a moment Amelia wondered if there was about to be a third dragon-monster in the party. She didn't gain nearly the size she or Andrea did though, and though Amelia did hunker down a bit by instinct, getting ready for an attack, she kept it at that. Andrea was the one who seemed to take the most offense again, which... Fair, that seemed somewhat par for the course at this point. Amelia still wanted to be more amused by all this than anything, but then that was the point again...

Wasn't Andrea older than Amelia? She thought she might have to bother her about that some other time. For now... maybe there was enough antagonizing going on between the other two now, Amelia probably didn't have to throw any more fuel on that fire. At least until...

"Wait, wait wait... Did you just make a rhyme in the middle of a threat? Seriously?" Amelia said, turning to look at Andrea for just a moment in disbelief. She shook her head though and let out a breath in a huff (what would actually happen to be an extremely cold huff, if Erestel was standing in the path of it still, though not an attack and more like a cold winter wind).

"Look, maybe just tell us who put the bounty out? Because really, I'm struggling to come up with anyone who wouldn't just do the job themselves, and I don't like this whole two-against-one situation. Even if there was sport to it, I don't think it's the start to anything fun. And I'm not really THAT eager to bite off anyone's head, to be honest. Kind of been avoiding the taste of brains since the whole dragon thing happened to me, actually."

Erestel stood frozen, threatened, and angry. All of her hackles were still raised, and at this point, it reminded her of a porcupine with how on end they were. Normally she didn’t enjoy giving away the fact her feathers were so ruffled, but this form couldn’t exactly hide her emotions as well as others could. One of its few downsides, but Andrea had angered her quite fiercely and at this point, she was more than happy to let her know. There was something about making threats that made her temper snap, and while some people thought her temper could use work, she was sure they could go screw themselves.

Erestel snarled defensively at Andrea’s commentary, and burst into a short, threatened roar when she called her stupid again. Her chest rose and fell heavily, a low rumble full of venom escaping with each exhale. The beast inside her remembered what it felt like to be called a stupid animal when held captive for fights, and now it was like a bull seeing red. For a moment, her heart pounded so hard it nearly leapt from her chest, reminding her she did anything to survive, even when the odds were stacked against her, and gods, have mercy on whatever pissed her off. Intimidation only meant she wanted to bite down harder, and like most animals, she was more dangerous when threatened. Her teeth remained clenched and bared, but she remained unnaturally still, feet planted widely, and defensively, and murder rising in her eyes. Her tail twitched lowly back and forth.

It was then, Erestel stumbled across the discovery she enjoyed her anger, enjoyed the way it made her blood boil. It made her feel justified in whatever measures she took to survive, and it made every other emotion irrelevant by comparison. It was the one emotion left she could feel, and feel well. Her heart stopped a beat or two when she realized exactly how much she fed off this venom. It might have helped her survive for a while, but she discovered it had begun to eat her alive like some parasite. It took several tense moments to find her way back down from the rage she felt, and even then she had to restrain herself from attempting to lash out and hurt something, or someone. If anything, it made her want to hurt something that much more, but she knew if she charged this fight head on, it wouldn’t end well. No, she’d have to employ ulterior tactics.

At long last, and after much inner conflict, she allowed her form to melt away. The spark of fire remained in her eyes, and she retrieved the two pieces of Andrea’s bow, gripping them with bone white knuckles, and broke them into smaller pieces. It felt therapeutic, and yes she wanted to be that spiteful. A smile of pleasure and contempt lined her expression as she half glimpsed at Andrea and threw the remains in the fire. She said nothing, and held her anger inside with a calm fury, stalking over to the bottle of rum. Erestel picked it up and twirled the neck in her fingers deftly like she was contemplating using it as a weapon, but planted her rear end on the nearest log and took a long, hard drink. Out of view, she slipped her other hand so quietly into a large pocket, it almost seemed like it had been there all along.

“Trust me, it’s quite high,” she said dryly in amusement. “If I cared, I’d almost be offended you think me that cheap.” Erestel took another small swig of the rum, and then continued. “I don’t know who put it out. It’s not exactly like we traded names,” she explained, a hint of malice in still in her tone. “I think it could have been some noble,” she suggested, but was vague on purpose. “I don’t ask who, I don’t ask why. It’s best not to ask questions in this line of work. Asking gets people killed, and most days, I don’t have a death wish,” she admitted with mock and derision. She eyed Andrea in a sidelong glance, entertained, and fully aware the woman might think otherwise. Erestel wasn’t inclined to care about the opinions of others, least of all Andrea’s, but she gave the woman room to respond with some quip or another about her clear death wish, and took another drink to pointedly ignore any response.

Erestel had her ideas who was after them of course, but she had a chip on her shoulder now, and wasn’t inclined to share them with either woman. The thought betrayed her, and despite her unimpressed expression, the faintest twitch of a scornful smile curled one corner of her lips. They might have the brawn, but she was cunning enough, and perhaps a small part of her wanted to let them know she was undeniably worth the distrust. There was a certain entertainment in allowing people to see emotions sometimes, and few people understood that words could be weapons.

“Whoever said alcohol isn’t a solution was wrong,” she determined absentmindedly. “Look, you’re not the first dragon I’ve seen today, and the last time I tried to negotiate with one it did try to eat my face off, so pardon me if I’m content to keep my distrust.”

It was fun making people angry. And it was fun being angry. Well, sort of. This wasn’t really anger for her, it was theatrics. When Andrea was truly angry, she was an entirely different beast. It didn’t happen all that often either, but she had a feeling that she’d rubbed this kid the wrong way in many directions and it was extremely satisfying. She was ready, ready to spring and have herself a nice little meal. Or not. Was she really, or was the beast just being an ass again? In this form, she was two creatures sharing one body – not as literally as Amelia was, but the instinct of the creature always left her in the mood for ripping something apart. Bounty hunter girl was the perfect opportunity, but was she really going to be able to do it without feeling guilty?

Her outrage at the girl’s outright stupidity however, had been teetering on the edge of control. She could only stay so say when it came to things like that. However, Amelia’s comment brought her back to earth and she let out a little huff of exasperation. “I don’t know, sometimes it just happens, okay!?” She sighed. A rhyme in the middle of a threat. Not her best move. But whatever, she didn’t care, she’d said it and the girl was just getting angrier…until she wasn’t anymore. And then Amelia had to go and be reasonable, which was annoying but also…needed. Glancing over at her, she felt the breath of cold wind and wrinkled her nose slightly. Then, she sighed. Amelia was right…this wasn’t very sporting.

Not to mention, the girl shrank back to her human form again, and Andrea could feel the adrenaline beginning to slow. Her heartbeat steadied, her muscles relaxed; her body was finally realizing it wasn’t going to go on a murder streak today, and she honestly couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved. Perhaps it was a combination of the two. She was just about ready to change back when the girl just had to go and break the pieces of her bow into more pieces. Really? Really? Was that really necessary?

Despite this incensing action, Andrea did not react, simply watching as Erestel walked over to the rum and began to drink it while talking. Her tone of voice was irritating, and as she watched, Andrea’s ear twitched slightly. She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Ya twig bitch I’ve been in this business longer than you’ve been alive… However, she stopped herself from making a comment and simply observed and listened. Maybe she did still want to eat her. The looks she was giving them, that smug expression like she knew something that they didn’t. She should have been old enough to keep from rising. She was mature enough to not react to it. Yet Andrea was not one for acting her age when it was so much more satisfying to be an infant. Her ears twitched back, then to the side as she processed, grey eyes glancing from Erestel to Amelia and then, she made up her mind.

The dragon comment was interesting, but it was going to have to wait. “Hold that thought,” She said. She took a few steps forward, eying the other bottle of rum, then sniffing it as though she were going to try and drink it in her beastly form. However, she changed course mid step, and in the blink of an eye, ears were flattened, and she’d wrapped her jaws around Erestel’s shoulder. She did not bite hard enough to break the skin, but she also didn’t bother being gentle as she whipped around and galloped a few strides before opening her wings and launching herself into the sky. Andrea wasn’t as fast as Amelia in her dragon form, but she could carry more weight, and could pull off quite a few head spinning maneuvers.

In a matter of seconds, she was several hundred feet off the ground, and in less than thirty she was well over a thousand. She paused, hovering for a moment, keeping herself airborne by flapping her wings rapidly, then dropped the girl into her claws – it would be more fun that way. Holding her around the middle, she would barely have a moment to adjust before Andrea stopped flapping abruptly and dropped like a stone. She spun around a few times as she fell before catching herself and turning the fall into a dive as she gained tremendous speed, then pulled up forcefully a few hundred feet above the ground before rocketing back into the sky.

Snarling, she then proceeded to perform a snap roll, something that was sure to get her prey’s head spinning, and just for good measure she did it three more times before diving again and then shooting back up into the sky. It was about two minutes of rip roaring, spinning, looping hell but then she dove back down to earth again, crashed through a tree (at low speed, she wasn’t aiming to kill here) and then a few feet off the ground she tossed Erestel into the dirt, landed, transformed and then marched over to the rum without a word and downed a quarter of the bottle before setting it down again. She smacked her lips and sighed. “Kid’s these days,” She said. She glanced over at Amelia and grinned. “I gotta say, that was therapeutic. I really needed a good rough and tumble.” She rolled her shoulders, appreciative of the workout. Then, she looked over at Erestel. “So, what was that you said about seeing another dragon?”

"Didn't say I thought you were cheap - though I really have no idea what your prices run. Trust me, I've had some upstart first-timer assassin get sent my way before just because the person holding the grudge was cheap and stupid." Actually it had happened three times. She'd had to kill one of them, since they weren't actually terrible in a fight, but the other two she'd just humiliated and sent home to reconsider their career choices. Amelia tried not to kill anyone she didn't have to, but she wasn't shy about doing it when it made sense.

Hey, she'd never claimed to anyone that she was a good person, after all.

"Death wishes have a bad rap... Though I suppose you can take your pick. Some people cling a little too tightly to life, too." she mused, giving a shrug again with her wings, though she settled back again as the would be assassin shifted back herself, then settled in with the rum. That was actually a fair bit better, compared to having some faintly ridiculous fight.

"Alcohol is probably my favorite solution actually." She lifted her head back up, stretching her neck, and she was starting to shift back to her human form when Andrea grabbed the other woman and took the hell off. "Oi, what the-" she started, but then the horse-dragon was gone, and Amelia let out a sigh, shaking her head. She finished the return to her human form, though she wasn't as good with it as the other two - gone anyway were the days where her return shift's left her naked, but she wasn't wearing much aside from her smallclothes, which left her walking around, gathering her jacket and pants (which she'd laced up to avoid them being shredded every time).

By the time they landed again, she was pulling her pants up, jacket back on the ground next to her, and she lifted a brow as she sat back down. "Really?" was all she asked, but no one seemed dead, and she took a swig of her own rum, just nodding at Andrea's question - that had been the one she wanted to ask, too.

Erestel could feel her temper surge and start to boil her blood a little at being launched into the sky in the manner Andrea gripped her throat, but her body tensed and froze. This soft body was in a vulnerable position, and she was forced to do nothing other than be at the mercy of this woman and do nothing than hope she wouldn’t bite harder. Erestel was level-headed enough currently to realize she deserved this, even, but she didn’t need to accept it. If Andrea would have given her a little more wiggle room beneath her claws, she might be able to reach the raven skin in one of her pouches.

However, when Andrea stopped flapping and dropped like a stone in midair, Erestel liked the lurching feeling in her stomach. She gained far more speed than a raven could in flight, which would have been almost fun if she hadn’t been forced into it. It wrenched her forward into a mixture of fear, anger, and thrill, and she wasn’t sure which one barreling around inside her would win out. Her expression steeled for another roll, refusing to give Andrea the satisfaction of her unease, but her stomach was doing somersaults as they spun and dove. It was hard not to get physically ill right then and there, but two things happened then. They barreled through a tree and then hit the ground in a skid on her backside. She felt her breath catch and heart race.

Erestel looked dazedly up at the sky and several moments passed in a haze before she realized her survival instincts had taken hold, reverting her to jaguar form. The back of her mind screamed to lash out in anger, but she forced herself to analyze her present situation. They had the advantage of strength on their side, and she had no experience to grapple with anything resembling those terms. It made her feel like an insect on the edge of a heel, and it was impossible to miss the icy glance she gave as she lay there. Had she been human then, her cheeks would have burned red, but her tail thumped this way and that in aggravation, an unconscious effort she tried to conceal immediately. Her white teeth were clenched and bared in a grimace over the pain of the landing, but she adopted a purposeful expression and looked around as she let her form melt away. Erestel curled her body up and settled back into her spot without a word. She refused to give them the pleasure of seeing her hurt, and kept silent with a hard look of stone as she picked up the rum bottle from where it lay on the ground.

Erestel was careful not to snap words at them while still infuriated, but she clenched her jaw so hard it throbbed. It wouldn’t do any good now, and she wasn’t dead set on dying either. Besides, she didn’t want to expend the energy. At least not now, but it could wait.

At Andrea’s question, a wicked, derisive smile grew across her lips. If she was smug before, it was nothing compared to this moment. A roguish look of satisfaction lit up her face, more than happy to allow Andrea to see how she screwed herself royally for that stunt. Erestel remained silent and let the woman stew between one another for several moments, taking long, obstinately unhurried drinks of rum happily.

“I don’t know how to put this nicely, so I won't,” she started evenly, but it quickly turned. “You have some nerve,” a sharp hellfire to her voice. Erestel shook her head in disbelief, and tittered mockingly. “What makes you think I would just give you what you want after that?” A spiteful fury burned in her amber eyes, as if almost daring Andrea to try that stunt again, intent to make her suffer. It only made the skinwalker push harder. “You know what your dragon curiosity sounds like? Not my problem,” she determined in calm ferocity.

Erestel stood up and started to stalk off without another word, bottle of rum still in hand. She raised it in the air a little, as if to say thanks for the consolation prize. After several long moments she stopped a distance away, sighed, hung her head a little, and muttered curses under her breath as she turned back around. There was a different look on her face this time, a sense of disgruntlement. Erestel returned back to her spot, sat down, and leaned forward in interest.

“Look, I’ll make you a better deal.” She looked from one woman to the next, prepared to level with them. “It’s evident you want to know where this dragon is fairly bad, and I’m certainly not inclined to part with that information for free, which leaves you at an impasse,” she reasoned. “I have a bit of a problem now too. I can’t exactly go back empty handed.” Erestel held a quick hand up to pause their protests, in case they thought she was going down the same road she tried earlier. “Now, I can’t trust either of you further than I can throw you, her even less,” she said coolly as she gestured in Andrea’s direction, “but it would sure as hell make it easier to con the bastard out of his bounty money if it looked like I didn’t come back empty handed.” That sly smile returned to her expression a little, a devious gleam in her eyes.

“If you help me with this, not only will I tell you where it went, but I’ll show you. Maybe help you wrangle it, if that’s what you’re after,” she suggested, “and just to drive a harder bargain, if it goes well, I’d even part with some of the bounty and a few bottles of druid wine, if you’re interested. Not to mention you’d be able to find out who is holding such a grudge.”

Erestel hoped Amelia wouldn’t be able to resist the last part about the alcohol, and she settled back into her spot comfortably and studied both women. They could stand to gain a lot, which was part of the point. Her idea would force a lot of trust on their end that didn’t exist in order to collect the bounty. More so, it was bad for business to come back empty handed. It was a bit vain, but she had a reputation to maintain. Worse came to worse, she obviously could go back empty handed, but it would cause a lot more problems than it was worth the effort. Of course, this plan could too, but she was willing to risk the odds it might not. Erestel stared at them for a moment longer before her eyes flicked from the near empty bottle, and back up again.

“Look, though, I swear if you give me even one hint of trouble, I will heave you off a bridge and it will look like a bloody accident.” It was a hyperbole, and she kept her tone slightly sardonic, but at least now there would be no mistaking where the three women stood on trust. Maybe she did have a death wish today after all, she mused internally.

Tag Bones & Alistair...lol, I love her attitude when she turns around, it's all 'well, f*ck.'